City Council Minutes 2016 09 27 SP

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City Council Meeting Minutes September 27, 2016 Page 2 of 6 and gave staff direction. That information is included in the proposed budget. These Fall meetings now focus on the operational budget. The Fall meetings will be divided among the ten major program areas. Based on Council's input, staff will bring back a final proposed budget for a public hearing on October 18. The adoption of the budget is expected on November 1. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked what kind of direction staff is looking for this evening. City Manager Fleming stated he is looking for any additional information Council would like to see in the final proposal, what are Council's top priorities, what is missing, and what should be excluded or not funded. City Manager Fleming noted the proposed budget is a work in progress. In preparing for this meeting, Finance staff found some software errors that when fixed showed there was less annual revenue than expected. In general, we prefer not to add new staff positions unless they can be supported by a steady revenue source. Given the new information from the software, it is likely some of the proposed staff positions cannot be supported. Therefore staff needs to know what Council's priorities are so if changes are needed to balance the budget we know what items or positions Council would prioritize. Councilmember Leh and Councilmember Keany arrived at 7:05 PM. Regarding proposed increases City Manager Fleming noted the proposed budget includes a priority list for each program and there is a sheet showing how each priority is funded, the proposed expenditures, and full time equivalent employee (FTEs) numbers. City Manager Fleming stated the information in the packet includes revenue assumptions and expenditure targets. This information drives the budget so staff needs to know if Council thinks these look reasonable and are not overly optimistic or under estimating. TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM City Manager Fleming noted the top priorities for transportation include $100,000 of general fund money to cover an on-call contractor for asphalt patching on top of what is funded from the Capital Fund for paving. Another priority is funding for an application support specialist to help with the new IAN enterprise software system. Currently we have termed staff working on this, but it requires a great deal of expertise to manage the system and staff thinks a full-time person is necessary to make the system work well. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked if the application specialist position is just for the new enterprise software or if that person would work on additional software applications in the future. City Manager Fleming stated this is the proposal for our current software needs and the hope is it will cover most if not all of what is needed but we won't know until we start implementing new systems.